Tag Archives: Newtonian physics

We’re taught to think in terms of linear time. Our whole lives are guided by the concept that one event precedes another and that consequences come from causes. We tell our life stories from the beginning and only in middle age do we look back connecting events in new ways to retell our story. Even this perspective, binds us to linear time. And yet, we all have experienced time’s peculiarities which open us to wonder. Why is it I can lose time in a favorite activity and that last hour at work seems like a month?

Einstein said, “…the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one.” Here we see Einstein speaking like a mystic and why should that surprise us? I’m reading Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book, Breaking the Habit of BeingYourself (How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One). Dispenza takes on the notion of linear time by examining an experiment done in 2000 by an Israeli doctor. Watch for the zinger!

Leonard Leibovici, MD conducted a double-blind, randomized trial of 3393 hospitalized patients all suffering with a sepsis infection. Leibovici was interested in whether prayer could affect patient outcome. The patients were divided with half being prayed for and half not being prayed for. Dr. Leibovici collected data on the length of fever, length of stay in the hospital, and death as a result of infection. Turns out the prayed for patients had an earlier reduction in fever and shorter hospital stays. The death rates for both groups were not statistically different. The results may shock some, but science has been doing prayer studies for quite a while ( Healing Words-The Power of Prayer & The Practice of Medicine by Larry Dossey, MD). The truly mind- numbing thing about the study is that those praying in 2000 were praying for patients who were hospitalized in the period 1990 to 1996. The conclusion drawn here was that patients who were prayed for in 2000, actually got better in the 1990s.

So what is going on and how should it change our ideas about time? What if Einstein is right and time is just a persistent illusion, an artifice created by the brain? We’re used to thinking that prayer or focused attention might be able to affect our future. But what if I can do something today to affect my past? Can I pray for a better childhood? Can I heal a fractured relationship from decades ago? Can I send myself strength to get through a rough career change I’m making now? Can I? Can you?

All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer

I’m excited to be able to write about an intriguing book suggested by a blog reader a while ago. The quote above is the starting point for Science and Psychic Phenomena- Fall of the House of Skeptics by Chris Carter. Carter is a Canadian, schooled at Oxford, who exhibits much courage in taking up a thorough review of parapsychology, its scandals, intriguing characters, research, and advances an idea about why parapsychology remains controversial.

Honestly, the existence of psi (including telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis) has already been proven to me by personal experience and I’m not alone. One study indicated that about 67% of Americans have had an ESP * experience. Polls taken over decades have shown that a majority of Americans already believe these things happen so what I’m going to get into here is a bit academic. Why is it that the discussion of these topics is still so taboo in some parts of the scientific community and in some parts of society? And what is the truth regarding scientific research into them?

Duke University

Let’s look at the research first. It was J.B. Rhine at Duke University who first brought ESP testing into the laboratory. In the early 30s, Rhine and Karl Zenner conducted trials of card guessing that laid the foundation for telepathy research. By 1940, nearly one million trials had been performed which eliminated critics early objections that sensory leakage might be causing the results. Experiments performed at other labs also confirmed Rhine’s results. There was something there. In the 1980s, Charles Honorton continued work in telepathy by conducting computer automated experiments. With an expected hit rate of 25%, Honorton’s studies overall hit rate was 34% with the results occurring by chance alone estimated to be 45,000 to 1. Replication studies were conducted into the 1990s with similar results.

There are five chapters in the book that outline the ins, outs, and fights that resulted when the studies were released. The conclusion really is that if this research had been produced in any other field, it would have been easily accepted as early as 1950!

People have reported experiencing PSI for thousands of years and there is solid scientific evidence to support those claims. Why does it remain so controversial? Author Chris Carter believes that PSI acceptance threatens certain people’s worldview. This worldview is called materialism and is a byproduct of an outdated 17th Century model of science. Many skeptics believe that the existence of PSI is impossible because it violates “known” science. This is simply not true. Science has evolved beyond the old science of Newtonian physics. In fact, the latest science of quantum physics doesn’t deny the existence of PSI, but rather points directly to it. So how to resolve the conundrum? Science has spoken, but the skeptics remain unconvinced. I’ll let noted Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Planck close for me.“a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”